Defining Reality
October 25, 2020
Reality is easiest to define as the quality or state of being real. Reality is neither fantasy, fiction nor illusion.
Trying to get beyond the general definition is tricky. Despite a wealth of knowledge there are limits to what is known. As a result people often disagree about what is real. Even experts disagree.
The difficulty in talking about reality is exemplified by a conversation I had with a dental hygienist years ago. Maybe my first mistake was trying to make Einstein’s Theory of Relativity a topic of idle conversation. I mentioned that the speed of light is called the universal constant. The hygienist thought about what I said, and remarked that the true universal constant is God.
Getting answers like that isn’t entirely surprising when you live in the Bible Belt. Sacred and secular knowledge often disagree about the nature of reality. Moral and ethical judgments are entangled in the question. Discussions about reality can get heated quickly.
Even limiting the discussion to secular or scientific knowledge, experts in those fields often disagree. Historically, Niels Bohr’s and Albert Einstein’s debate about quantum mechanics is telling. After Bohr’s student Werner Heisenberg discovered the Uncertainty Principle, Einstein quipped that God does not play dice with the Universe. Despite quantum mechanics becoming one of the most successful scientific theories, Einstein was bothered by the idea that reality could be left to chance (to be certain Einstein contributed greatly to the field of quantum mechanics).
Part of what makes discussions about reality so compelling is that despite seeming basic, intuitive and fundamental, reality is difficult to agree upon.
